A Group which is behind DNC Hack Exploits Windows Zero-Day

Microsoft has admitted what Google confessed to public yesterday: There is a major security flaw in Windows and hackers connected to the Russian group Strontium, also known as Fancy Bear, are aggressively exploiting it. However, Microsoft has promised to patch it completely and will update it by November 8th.

Google published details of the bug which has not been fixed yet after allowing Microsoft a week to react. Google said that the issue was "particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited." Bbc.com posted on November 1st, 2016, quoting Microsoft as saying that the alert can harm more than good during this stage because it requires more time for developing a patch.

A spokesperson of Microsoft told news site of VentureBeat that "we believe in co-ordinate vulnerability disclosure, and today's disclosure by Google puts customers at potential risk".

Threat Analysis Group of Google announced on Monday that it has discovered the security exploit called Strontium by Microsoft. The attacks which tried to gain control of a user's computer took advantage of the so-called zero-day flaws or security holes which are not known to the vendor of the product and therefore patch has not been yet produced.

Microsoft posted a blog stating that Strontium, the activity group, generally targets the diplomatic institutions, military organizations, as well as government agencies, and affiliated private sector organizations like defense contractors along with public policy research institutes. As per the blog, "Microsoft has attributed more 0-day exploits to Strontium than any other tracked group in 2016."

Google claimed that it has discovered the problem on Saturday and revealed it because it was being aggressively exploited. Fancy Bear fancies itself standing "for fair play and clean sport", bragging on website regarding hacking of World Anti-Doping Agency.

As per Myerson, Microsoft wanted to coordinate the disclosure of vulnerability together with release of the patch; and he criticized Google for disclosing information early. Myerson blogged that "Google's decision to disclose these vulnerabilities before patches is broadly available and tested is disappointing, and puts customers at increased risk."

A complaint was filed by Microsoft in the federal court of Alexandria, Virginia, wanting a court order for forcing hackers to return entire information that was acquired illegally, and hand over all the domain names that are used in spear-phishing attacks.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/7/2016